My friends flatter me with my having completely triumphed. There is no
permanent breach between us. I think he begins already to repent his
course." Mr. Clay was intensely national, but his theory of preserving the
Union was by continual compromise, or, in other words, by constant yielding
to the aggressive South. Mr. Webster's plan was to maintain a firm
attitude, enforce absolute submission to all constitutional laws, and prove
that agitation against the Union could lead only to defeat. This policy
would not have resulted in rebellion, but, if it had, the hanging of
Calhoun and a few like him, and the military government of South Carolina,
by the hero of New Orleans, would have taught slave-holders such a lesson
that we should probably have been spared four years of civil war. Peaceful
submission, however, would have been the sure outcome of Mr. Webster's
policy. But a compromise appealed as it always does to the timid,
balance-of-power party. Mr. Clay prevailed, and the manufacturers of New
England, as well as elsewhere, finding that he had secured for them the
benefit of time and of the chapter of accidents, rapidly came over to his
support.
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